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  • Hey all, just changed over the backend after 15 years I figured time to give it a bit of an update, its probably gonna be a bit weird for most of you and i am sure there is a few bugs to work out but it should kinda work the same as before... hopefully :)

Anamorphic a dying trend?

Anamorphic lenses are not a trend and they aren't going anywhere. It is a look that many cinematographers love. In the world of digital though there is no technical advantage to shooting anamorphic other than the look. Personally, I am and always was partial to spherical lenses. I think that a circular bokeh is much nicer than an elliptical one (assuming your lens does indeed produce a circular bokeh and not some hexagonal or octagonal shape). Deakins likes spherical, Pfister likes anamorphic... they both create gorgeous images.
 
And maybe we get so much resolution with Red sensors that we can finally afford to throw some away ;-)
 
Today I took a 35mm anamorphic going through a 1.4 extender to a dragon (an effective 25mm lens but at 4:1 aspect ratio full field on the sensor), projecting that onto a sphere at 12288 by 3160. I then took a simulated camera and did a camera whip in the sphere using a 50mm lens(using nukex), it looked better then real (since the motion blur was exactly correct from the virtual camera's movement). With this technique I think I'm going to push things a bit and do more camera pans at 100mm on actors (i.e. so the background is blurred but the actors face is in sharp focus, I find it really hard to do this in camera with the actors are walking by real quick with a 100mm "real" lens, with the virtual lens I can track the face perfectly and even get less then perfect actors to really feel A level with "looks" in perfect focus while the background is perfectly blured). There's just crazy cool things you can do with anamorphics, doable with sphericle, but I trully love special effects cinematography with anamorphics(especially master prime anamorphics so I don't have to deal with lens problems).
 
As a director I will never understand the obsession with the sharpest and the cleanest image possible. For me cinema was and is not a reality, but a separate world of it's own and when I see images too realistic, too lifelike, it just ruins the whole experience. I like anamorphic a lot because, as was said earlier, it's one more step in creating a different reality, the one more distanced from our own, so I'd pick anamorphic more often than spherical as an artistic choice.

It was really hard for me to watch The Hobbit movies for the same reason, the image was too sharp and too lifelike because of 48fps, I had a feeling I'm watching theater.

Imperfections make the image interesting - film grain, wrong shaped bokeh, flares, etc. Perfect images are just plain boring in my opinion. Master Primes is the least exciting glass there is for me. If combined with a Dragon at 6K - that's a combination I'd like to avoid at any cost.

I think it's good to have a different perspective.
 
Jacek Zakowicz said:
I love the "Blade Runner"- Just imagine it shot and projected in 65mm.....:thumbsup:
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But then we wouldn't have the distorted reality and savage beauty of these atmospheric, gritty images to marvel at:

uPKyup.jpg

Ki34k5.jpg


Obviously 65mm is a spectacular format, but in my opinion, the clarity, etc. of 65mm would add nothing, and probably subtract something of what makes Blade Runner the particular film that it is.
And was designed to be.
 
I'm pretty sure Ridley Scott would pick 65mm if offered haha
As every DP would...
 
The point is that lenses are a choice, and the more choice the better.
 
Jacek Zakowicz said:
If they use a tiny brush to paint a house.......
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I was talking about art painters. You are talking about house painters.
So I agree with you, a guy who is shooting like if he were a house painter will choose 65mm.
 
I wonder what the movie "CAROL" would look like if shot with 65mm negative. Hmmmmm.
 
Šabović Adis;1591696 said:
Even Kubrick, huhuh...? :biggrin:
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I meant "will choose 65mm 100% of the time as pixel peepers". Real talented DP will choose the right tool for the right project ^^
 
I personally think anamorphic is infinitely prettier and more cinematic, despite all the quirks of it I think it's wonderful and in fact I love the artifacts, flares, bokeh, field of view, depth control, all of it, internal reflections too
 
Jacek Zakowicz said:
I'm pretty sure Ridley Scott would pick 65mm if offered haha
As every DP would...
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I believe some of Blade Runner is shot on 65mm as compositing back then was easier to do with spherical and you needed 65 to either match the anamorphic quality or survive the loss of quality from generation loss, possibly both.
 
Oh I love that messy anamorphic background.
 
Jacek Zakowicz said:
Lets not forget that initially the anamorphic "artifacts" (optical aberrations really) was a "necessary "evil" that production companies had to live with to save money. Over the years through the natural process of legacy they had become PERCEIVED as desirable "artifacts"
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Barrel distortion (or pincushion) is not desirable - at least not to me. I bet most people would agree with that. Straight lines should be straight. But the other aberrations are actually nice. Flare is an aberration, but only on paper. It's beautiful.

Demetri Zuev said:
It was really hard for me to watch The Hobbit movies for the same reason, the image was too sharp and too lifelike because of 48fps, I had a feeling I'm watching theater.
Click to expand...
There is something to be said for that, or for interlaced video. That cold, flat look gives horror stories an extra dimension of creepiness. I remember watching little snippets of Dark Shadows when I was a kid in the '80s. I think it was all video and it was CREEPY. But I'd never shoot HFR for cinema. No way.

Ryan Glover said:
Obviously 65mm is a spectacular format, but in my opinion, the clarity, etc. of 65mm would add nothing, and probably subtract something of what makes Blade Runner the particular film that it is.
And was designed to be.
Click to expand...
I think someone made a boo-boo for the opening shot - note how the gas flares are all squeezed. I suspect that someone shot the gas flares in anamorphic but projected them spherically. The VFX were described in Future Noir, but there is no mention of this mistake, IIRC. It's also just another example of how practicals are just nicer than CGI. IMHO!

I think RED could design a special anamorphic-ready sensor, where the photosites are half as wide but twice as high. Sort of like the way the Nikon D1X's sensor was made:

http://www.dpreview.com/reviews/nikond1x

That way, no desqueezing would be necessary. The file would open up at the correct 2.35:1 ratio.
 
Ugo Del said:
I meant "will choose 65mm 100% of the time as pixel peepers". Real talented DP will choose the right tool for the right project ^^
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But in the '50-s, anamorphic was just a cheap substitute for real wide screen. It's technical bandaid, not the cure. Still is, but, in the meantime, everybody just got used to how it looks.

I'll only use anamorphic if I have no other choice. :biggrin:
 
The "Anamorphic" look has now been socially imprinted into billions of peoples brains and is therefore sometimes wanted and loved.
 
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